Mitsui OSK, one of the world’s largest shipping lines, will pay reparations of Y2.9 billion ($28.4 million) to the Chen family for ships taken by the Japanese military in the 1930s,
the
Financial Times
reported.
The Shanghai Maritime Court impounded a Mitsui bulk ore carrier in a deepwater port to enforce the ruling. Mitsui paid Y4 billion to release the ship, the
FT
article said.
The court ruled in favor of David Chen and his uncle. David Chen, a schoolteacher, is the great-grandson of Chen Shuntong, who owned the Chung Wei Steamship Co. in Shanghai in the 1930s. David Chen’s Chinese name is Chungwei, the article noted.
In 1936, according to the report, Chung Wei Steamship leased two of its ships to a Japanese shipping line. The ships were soon commandeered by the Japanese navy, which stopped paying Chung Wei. The Chinese nationalist government sank Chung Wei’s two other ships at the mouth of the Yangtze River in an effort to stop the Japanese navy from advancing. After the war, the Chinese government paid Chen Shuntong “a token reparation” for the two ships, and he learned that both of the ships that had gone to Japan were both destroyed.
Chen Shuntong’s son Chen Chiak Qun found the lease contract after his father’s death and filed suit in Tokyo in 1970; four years later, the court said too much time had passed. In 1988, Chen Shuntong’s two sons sued in Shanghai; the court said Chung Wei Steamship no longer existed. In 2003, they received permission to resume the suit as individuals, the
FT
article said.
By 2006, the political climate had begun to change, the
FT
report noted. “Amid tensions over the East China Sea, the Chinese government became more attentive to citizens wronged during the war,” the article said. In 2007, the Shanghai Maritime Court ruled that Mitsui should pay Y2.9 billion to the brothers. Mitsui unsuccessfully appealed and tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a settlement of about Y1.5 billion with the family, the article said.
David Chen told the
FT
that his elderly uncles and aunts would decide what to do with the money. His father and uncle, who operated a small company that imported toys and wine to Shanghai, had registered a company in Hong Kong under the name Chung Wei Steamship. Chen said his father, who died two years ago, “had big plans for the business.” (Source:
Financial Times,
April 26-27, 2014.)
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